by Nora Roberts
“Thank her yourself.” Kate turned, then spotted Jack facedown on the couch, one arm dangling. “Conked out, did he?” she went to the boy, automatically lifting his arm back on the cushion, draping the ancient afghan over him. “Trying to stay awake till midnight?”
“Yeah.”
He looked baffled, Kate thought. Baffled, rumpled and mouthwatering standing there with her mother’s bowl and Jack’s toys piled in his arms. “I love this movie,” she said easily, glancing at the TV. “Especially the part where they open up that doorway and it’s full of alien eyeballs and tentacles. Why don’t you offer me a drink? It’s traditional.”
“Beer’s it.”
“Oh, major calories. Okay, I’ll live dangerously.” She walked over, took her mother’s bowl. “Where’s the kitchen?”
“It’s…” She was wearing perfume—something just sliding toward hot. The room had never experienced that sort of seductive female scent before. He glanced to the left, dropped a toy car on his foot.
“I’ll find it. Want a refill?”
“No, I’ve got—” For God’s sake, he thought, dumping the toys and going after her again. “Look, Kate, you caught me at a bad time.”
“Boy, look at these ceilings. Have you been doing the rehab yourself?”
“When I have some spare time. Listen—”
He broke off, swore, when she strolled into the kitchen. “Wow.” She scanned the room. Granite countertops, slate floor, oak cupboards and a charming little stone hearth.
And every inch covered with dishes, pots, school papers, newspapers, discarded outerwear.
“Wow,” she said again. “This took some real effort.” She stepped over to the counter where what was left of the pizza had yet to be put away. Broke off a corner. Nibbled. “Good.”
The drunk elves, he thought, had nothing on the war-crazed monkeys that had invaded his kitchen. “It’s usually not this bad.”
“You had a party with your son. Stop apologizing. Beer in the fridge?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Hell with it. “Why aren’t you at a party?”
“I am. I just came late.” She handed him the beer. “Open that for me, will you?” She sniffed the air while he twisted off the cap. “I smell popcorn.”
“We pretty much finished that off.”
“Well, that’s what I get for being late.” She leaned back against the counter, took a sip of beer. “Want to go sit on the couch, watch the rest of the movie and make out?”
“Yeah. No.”
“No to which, the movie or the making-out?”
She was laughing at him. He wanted to be enraged. But was only aroused. “You keep getting in my way.”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
With his eyes on hers, he closed the distance between them. Took the bottle from her hand, set it aside.
New Year’s Eve, he thought. Out with the old. In with the…who knew?
“Well.” Pulses thrumming, she started to slide her hands up his chest, but he caught them in his.
“No. My turn.”
He lowered his head, and his mouth began to whisper over hers.
“Dad?”
“Oh God.” It came out on a low moan as Brody stepped back.
Jack stood in the doorway, rubbing sleepy eyes. “What are you doing, Dad?”
“Nothing.” And the doing of nothing with Kate was very likely to kill him.
“Actually your dad was going to kiss me.”
“Kate.” He said it in precisely the same tone he’d used when Jack said something unfortunate.
“Nah.” Jack, in his oldest Power Ranger pajamas, studied them owlishly. His hair stood up in pale spikes, and his cheeks were still flushed from sleep. “Dad doesn’t kiss girls.”
“Really?” Before Brody could back too far away, Kate simply grabbed ahold of his shirt. “Why not?”
“Because they’re girls.” To emphasize the point, Jack rolled his eyes. “Kissing girls is yuck.”
“Oh, yeah.” She bumped the father aside, crooked a finger to the son. “Come here, pal.”
“How come?”
“So I can kiss you all over your face.”
“Nuh-uh!” His eyes widened, and danced. “Yuck-o.”
“Okay.” She peeled off her coat, tossed it to Brody, then pushed up her sleeves. “That’s it. You’re doomed.”
She made a grab, giving him enough time to yelp and run for cover. She played dodge and dart for a few minutes, surprising Brody at how easily she avoided trampling on toys. Jack squealed for help, obviously having a great time.
She caught him, wrestled him to the couch, pinned him while he laughed and screamed for mercy.
“Now…the ultimate punishment.” She dashed kisses over his cheeks, punctuating them with loud smacks. “Say yummy,” she ordered.
“Nuh-uh!” He was breathless and his belly was wild with laughter and delight.
“Say yummy, yummy, yummy or I’ll never stop.”
“Yummy!” he shouted, choking on giggles. “Yummy, yummy.”
“There.” She sat back, whistled out a breath. “My work is done.”
Jack crawled right into her lap. She wasn’t soft like Grandma, or hard like Dad. She was different, and her hair was soft and tickly. “Are you going to stay till midnight when it’s new year?”
“I’d love to.” She glanced over her shoulder at Brody. “If your dad says it’s okay.”
Some battles, he thought, were lost before they were waged. “I’ll get your beer.”
Chapter Five
“Now.” Frederica Kimball LeBeck dragged her sister into Kate’s bedroom, firmly closed the door. That would, she calculated, insure them approximately five minutes of quiet and privacy. “Tell me everything—from the beginning.”
“Okay. According to scientific evidence, there was a great explosion in space.”
“Ha ha. About Brody O’Connell.” Eight years Kate’s senior—light where Kate was dark, petite where Kate was willowy, Freddie flopped on the bed. “Mama told me you’ve got him in your crosshairs.”
“He’s not a rabbit.” Kate flopped on the bed in turn. “Gorgeous, though, huh?”
“Oh, yeah. Excellent shoulders. So what’s the deal?”
“The deal is he’s a widower, doing a bang up job raising a terrific boy. You saw Jack right?”
“Can’t miss him. He’s giving my Max a run for his money,” she added, speaking of her own six-year-old son. “They’re bonding over video games.”
“Great, that’ll push Brody into the social mix. I don’t think he’s given himself much chance to play.”
“He’s getting one now, whether he wants it or not. Grandpa and Uncle Mik shanghaied him. I saw them shoving him out the door so they could all go look at your building and make manly carpenter-guy noises over it.”
“Perfect.”
“So, is it just glands, or is it more?”
“Well, it started with glands. My glands are very susceptible to big, strong men—and their tool belts.”
While Freddie snorted with laughter, Kate rolled over on her back, studied the ceiling. “Could be more. He seems like— I don’t know, just a very nice man—solid, responsible, loving. The kind of man I haven’t seen much of. Gun-shy, too, in a really sweet way, which makes him a wonderful challenge.”
“And nobody likes a challenge more than you.”
“True. Unless it’s you. And I wouldn’t mind pursuing the whole thing at that level. But every time I see him with Jack, there’s this little…tug inside. You know?”
“Yeah.” Freddie had started experiencing those tugs where her own husband Nick was concerned at approximately the age of thirteen. “Are you falling for him?”
“Too soon to know. But I really like him on all the important levels, which balances out nicely with all this wild lust.”
She lifted her leg, pointed her toe at the ceiling. “I really want to get him alone somewhere and rip his clothes off. But I know I can
also have a good conversation with him. Last night we watched the last part of that movie about the giant eye from space.”
“Yeah. I love that movie.”
“Me, too. That’s what I mean. It was really comfortable and easy.” And sweet, she thought with a long, lazy stretch. Absolutely sweet. “Even though he gives me that zing in the blood, it’s nice to just sit on the couch and watch an old movie. Most of the guys I dated, it was either dancing, partying, dancing, art shows, dancing. There was never any let’s just stay home for a night and relax. I’m really ready to do that.”
“Small town, ballet school, a romance with a carpenter. It suits you, Katie.”
“Yeah.” Delighted Freddie could think so, she rolled over again. “It really does.”
Yuri Stanislaski, a bull of a man with a fringe of stone-gray hair, stood in the center of the room destined to be a dance studio.
“So, this is good space. My granddaughter, she knows the value of space. Strong foundation.” He walked over, gave the wall a punch with the side of his fist. “Good bones.”
Mikhail, Yuri’s oldest son, stood at the front windows. “She’ll relive her childhood out here. It’s good for her. And—” he turned, flashed a smile “—people look in, see the dancers. Advertisement. My niece is a clever girl.”
There were pounding feet on the steps. Brody had no idea how many of the young people had come down with them. He thought most of them belonged to Mik, but it was impossible to keep track when there were so many of them, and all almost ridiculously good-looking.
He wasn’t used to large families, all the byplay and interaction. And he had a feeling the Stanislaskis were about as big as a family could get without just bursting at the seams.
“Papa! Come on up. You gotta see this place. It’s ancient. It’s great!”
“My son, Griff,” Mik said with a twinkle. “He likes old things.”
“So, we go up.” Yuri gave Brody a pat on the back that could have toppled an elephant. “We see what it is you do with this ancient great place to make my little girl safe and happy. She is a beauty, my Katie. Yes?”
“Yes,” Brody said, cautiously.
“And strong.”
“Ah.” Unsure of his ground, he glanced toward Mikhail for help and got only that thousand-watt grin. “Sure.”
“Also good bones.” Yuri let out another hearty laugh, and twinkling at his son in what was an unmistakable inside joke, started up the stairs.
Brody didn’t know how it happened. He’d meant to do no more than drop in on the Kimballs. To be polite, to thank Natasha for thinking of him and Jack.
He’d gotten swept in. Swallowed was more like it, he decided. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen that many people in one place at one time before. And most of them were related in one way or the other.
Since his own family consisted of himself and Jack, his parents—with three aunts and uncles and six cousins scattered down south—the sheer number of Stanislaskis had been an eye-opener.
Frankly he didn’t see how they kept track of each other.
They were loud, beautiful, boisterous, full of questions, stories and arguments. The house had been so full of people, food, drink, music, that although he’d ended staying until nearly eight, he’d had no more than a few snatches of conversation with Kate.
He’d been dragged off to the building, grilled over his plans—and he wasn’t dim enough to have been fooled that the grilling had been exclusively on rehab.
Kate’s family had been sizing him up. Connie’s had done the same, he remembered. Certainly not with this good humor or affection or, well, sheer amusement, Brody decided. But the bottom line was identical.
Was this guy good enough for their princess? In Connie’s case the answer had been an unqualified no. The resentment on both sides had tainted everything that had happened afterward with shadows.
His impression was the Stanislaski verdict was still pending. Nothing he’d done to tactfully demonstrate he wasn’t looking to sweep the ballerina off her toe shoes had stopped them from cornering him—good-naturedly. Asking questions—politely. Or giving him the old once-over—without the least bit of subtlety.
It was more than enough to make a man glad he was single, and intended to stay that way.
Now the party was over. The holidays were, thank the Lord, behind him. He could get back to work, remembering that Kate Kimball was a client. And not a lover.
He spent a week tearing out, cleaning out, prepping walls, checking pipes.
She never came by.
Every day when he arrived on the site, he imagined she’d stroll down at some point and check the progress. Every evening when he loaded his tools back into his truck he wondered what she was up to.
Obviously she was busy, had other things to deal with. Didn’t care as much as she’d indicated about the job. Very obviously, she wasn’t as interested in him as she’d pretended to be.
Which was why he’d been very smart to avoid getting tangled up with some sort of fling with her. She was probably staying out half the night living it up, and spending the other half with some slick New Yorker. He wouldn’t be surprised at all. Not one bit. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was already making plans to sell the property and shake the small town dust off her dancing shoes.
But he was surprised to find himself striding up the steps to her front door and banging on it.
He paced the porch. She was the one who’d wanted to nail down every detail, wasn’t she? He strode back to the door, banged again. The least she could do was maintain some pretense of interest in the project for a lousy week.
He zigzagged back and forth across the porch again. What the hell was he doing? This was stupid. It was none of his business what she did or how she did it, as long as she paid the freight. He drew a deep breath, let it out slowly and had nearly calmed himself down when the door opened.
There she was, looking all heavy-eyed and sleepy, her face flushed, her hair just a little tumbled. Like a woman who’d just slid herself out of bed, and had plans to slide right back in again.
Damn it.
“Brody?”
“Yeah. Sorry to wake you up. After all it’s only four in the afternoon.”
Her brain was too fuzzy to register the insult, so she gave him a sleepy smile. “It’s all right. If I go down for more than an hour in the afternoon, I don’t sleep well at night. Come on in. I need coffee.”
Assuming he’d follow, she turned and walked back toward the kitchen. She heard the door slam, but since it often did in this house, she didn’t think anything of it. “I just got in a couple of hours ago.” She started a fresh pot, willed it to hurry. To stretch out fatigued muscles, she automatically moved into the first position. “How are things going on my job?”
“Your interest in stuff always blow hot and cold?”
“Hmm? What?” Third position, rise to toes. Get coffee mugs from cupboard.
“You haven’t been to the site in a week.”
“I was out of town. You take it black, right? A little emergency in New York.”
Instantly his annoyance shifted into concern. “Your family?”
“Oh, no. They’re fine.” She arched her back, twisted a little, winced. “Can you…I’ve got this spot right back…”
She curved her arm over her back, trying to reach a sore muscle between her shoulder blades. “Just press in there with your thumb for a minute. A little lower,” she said when he complied. “Oh. Mmm, that’s it. Harder.” She let out a low, throaty groan, tipped her head back, closed her eyes. “Oh, yes. Yes. Don’t stop.”
“The hell with this.” Viciously aroused, he spun her around, slammed her back against the counter and crushed his mouth to hers.
Heat flashed through her logy system, lights slashed through her sleep-dulled brain. Her lips parted on a gasp of surprise, and he took the kiss deep. Took her deep before she could find her balance. She lifted her hands, a helpless flutter, as she tried to catch up.
She was trapped between his body and the counter, two unyielding surfaces. All the fatigue, the vague aches, burned away in the sudden fireball of sensation.
Frustration, need, temper, lust. They’d all been bottled up inside him since the first moment he’d seen her. Now that the cork was popped, the passion poured out. He took what he hadn’t allowed himself to want, ravaging her mouth to feed the hunger.
And when she gripped his shoulders and began to tremble, he took more.
They were both breathless when he tore his mouth from hers. For a long moment they stayed as they were, staring at each other, with his hands fisted in her hair, and her fingers digging into his shoulders.
Then their mouths were locked again, a reckless war of lips and tongues and teeth. Her hands tugged at his shirt, his rushed under her sweater. Groping, gasping, they struggled to find more. His back rapped against the refrigerator; her teeth scraped along his neck. He circled around until they bumped the kitchen table. He molded her hips, was about to lift them onto that hard, flat surface.
“Katie, is that fresh coffee I…” Spencer Kimball stopped short in the doorway, slapped hard in the heart by the sight of his baby girl wrapped like a vine around his carpenter.
They broke apart, with the guilty jerk of a child caught with its hand in the cookie jar.
For an awkward, endless five seconds no one spoke nor moved.
“I, ah…” Dear God, was all Spencer could think. “I need to…hmm. In the music room.”
He backed out, walked quickly away.
Brody dragged his hands through his hair, fisted them there. “Oh, God. Get me a gun. I’d like to shoot myself now and get it over with.”
“We don’t have one.” She gripped the back of a ladder-back chair. The room was still spinning. “It’s all right. My father knows I kiss men on occasion.”
Brody dropped his hands. “I was about to do a hell of a lot more than kiss you, and on your mother’s kitchen table.”
“I know.” Wasn’t her pulse still banging like a kettledrum? Couldn’t she see the blind heat of desire in those wonderful eyes of his? “It’s a damn shame Dad didn’t have late classes today.”